At times in Christian thought, the priorities of pure doctrine and passionate mission have been perceived as opposites on a spectrum where emphasis on one results in neglect of the other, but without one, the other is deficient and doomed to crumble. Mission without doctrine is like a body without a skeleton, but apart from mission, doctrine is like dry bones in a museum. A Lutheran Reformission maintains a dual emphasis, resulting in doctrinal missions as well as missional doctrine.

Monday, May 26, 2014

My article for this week's newspapers answers a question about participation in patriotic acts and government service:

Q: Are Christians allowed to serve
in elected office or the military, salute or pledge allegiance to the flag,
vote, and participate as jurors or parties to a court case; and what is the
line where a Christian’s involvement with secular government becomes
inappropriate?

Every so often throughout history, a
few Christian leaders start to raise questions about whether a Christian may
participate in secular government. Under
older systems of empire or monarchy, this largely meant employment as a
government official or soldier.

In those cases, the permissibility of
Christian service hinged largely on whether the job included duties that would
be sinful (such as ancient Roman tax collectors who made a living by cheating
citizens) or whether it required idolatry (such as the requirement for Roman
Soldiers to worship Caesar as a god).

In our American experience, this
question takes on a new twist, because we citizens are the government in many
ways. While elected officials write and
enforce our laws, those officials are chosen by the people’s vote, and the
people serve in applying and carrying out the law in such actions as jury
service.

Although the early Christians were
often at odds with government as members of a forbidden religion and a despised
minority, it was not government in and of itself which they were separating
from, but rather the actions of a government that was hostile to their faith
and demanded that they disobey both God’s law and their own conscience in order
to be citizens in good standing.

Understood within the boundary that
the Christian’s first allegiance is to the Triune God, and that the Christian
must “obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29), the Bible is actually quite
positive toward government and other earthly authorities. Beginning with the understanding that the
Fourth Commandment, “Honor your father and mother,” extends beyond parents to
include all who are in positions of authority, and reinforced by numerous New
Testament commands to obey those in authority, the Bible intends that
Christians would be honest and obedient citizens and be a blessing to their
governing authorities and their nation.
St. Paul even writes that governing authorities have been “instituted by
God.” (Romans 13)

So Christians are permitted to salute
their flag and pledge allegiance, not by idolatrously considering their
government equal or superior to God, but acknowledging that God has instituted
earthly authority and called them to respect and obey it. Military service (as explained more fully in
a previous column) is also an honorable vocation for Christians who desire to
defend and protect their neighbors.

Likewise, the courts have been instituted
to defend the rights of citizens to their safety, reputation, and property, and
Christians may certainly use them, when necessary to prosecute crimes or settle
disputes over property. When Paul
criticizes the Corinthians (ch. 5) for their lawsuits against one another, he
does not do so because they made use of secular courts, but because they were
doing harm to the reputation of the Church by airing grievances between fellow
believers in public rather than settling them amongst themselves within the
congregation.

Finally, voting and public office are
certainly appropriate pursuits for Christians.
It would be easier to say that one is sinning by refusing to participate
in these functions rather than by exercising the privilege to do so. In a government where the people themselves
set the direction of policy and choose who will lead, what better way for a
Christian to serve his fellow citizens than by voting for honorable public
servants and advocating for moral and beneficial laws?

The only limitation that a Christian
faces in their participation is that they may not give the government higher
honor than God or disobey God’s revealed law in order to obey the government’s
policy or statutes. Beyond this, the
Christian is free honor his government and its flag and privileged to exercise
his faith by honorable service to his neighbors.

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

My article for this week's newspapers responds to an inquiry about Jesus' family:

Q: What was Jesus’ family
like? Did he have brothers, sisters, a
wife, or children? Was the same true for
His disciples?

From the early chapters of the Gospel
of Luke, we learn about Jesus’ family at the time of His birth. We know that His mother Mary was a virgin who
was engaged to a man named Joseph when an angel initiated her pregnancy with
the announcement that she would give birth to the Savior.

Mary was likely young, as women were
typically married shortly after the age where they were physically capable of
childbearing. Joseph was probably older,
because it was expected that a man have a home and an established trade before
he was considered eligible to marry.

After Mary and Joseph flee to Egypt
to escape Herod’s attempt to kill Jesus, the only other event Scripture records
from Jesus’ childhood is when he was unintentionally left behind in Jerusalem
by his parents and discovered in the temple discussing theology. Although Joseph was not Jesus’ biological
father, he was His earthly guardian, but after this event, Joseph is never
mentioned again in the Gospels, leading many to believe that He died some time
when Jesus was between the ages of 12 and 30.

This would have left Mary as a widow,
and Jesus, her oldest son, would have likely been left as the primary provider
for the family. Even though there is not
a record of the birth of Jesus’ siblings, the Gospels do mention His “mother
and brothers” on one occasion, and on another occasion names four brothers
(James, Jude, Simon, Joses) and refers to unnamed “sisters,” indicating two or
more daughters born to Mary and Joseph.

Some have attempted to describe Joseph
as a widower, and these 6 or more siblings as children from that previous
marriage, and not with Mary. Others have
described them as cousins or other relatives.
While both of these explanations are possible based on the words used in
the Gospel for Jesus brothers and sisters, the plain usual meaning of this word
is literal, biological siblings, and usage of that word for step-siblings or
cousins would be far less common, making the most plain and reasonable
conclusion that these 6 or more siblings are Jesus’ half-siblings born to Mary
and Joseph.

This is further supported by
Matthew’s description of the marriage of Joseph and Mary, when he says Joseph
“took Mary as his wife, but did not know her until she had given birth to her
son.” Compare this to the statement “John
did not eat breakfast until he had showered.”
Such a statement indicates that John did actually eat breakfast, but only
after he had showered. Likewise,
Matthew’s statement indicates that Joseph and Mary do consummate their marriage,
but only after Jesus has been born.

Some vague fragments and
superstitious stories have arisen from time to time about Jesus having a wife,
perhaps Mary Magdalene, but none of them are remotely reliable from a textual
perspective, and most have conclusively been proven as forgeries that were not
written until 300-400 years after the Resurrection of Jesus. This results in the clear conclusion that
Jesus had neither a wife nor children.

Regarding the disciples, it appears
that most of them had wives and typical families. Paul was single, and he refers to the
benefits of this status for His mission and ministry. At the same time, his words in 1 Corinthians
9 imply that marriage and family were the norm among the other Apostles, and he
specifically mentions Cephas [Peter] and the Lord’s brothers [probably James
and Jude] as being married. Luke
specifically mentions Peter’s mother-in-law, who was healed by Jesus of a high
fever, at the end of chapter 2 of his Gospel, indicating that Peter was
certainly married.

In spite of agenda-driven
explanations to the contrary, the simplest explanation that can be drawn from
Scripture regarding the family life of Jesus and the disciples is that Mary and
Joseph carried on a normal married life after the birth of Jesus, that Jesus
remained single and childless throughout His life, and that the average
disciple, including their leader Peter, seems to have been married, with Paul
as the one notable exception.

Lutheranism is more than a cultural identity or a denominational label. In fact, this cultural and institutional baggage may be the primary obstacle in Lutheranism’s path.

To be a Lutheran is not dependent on a code of behavior or a set of common customs. Instead, to be a Lutheran is to receive Jesus in His Word, Body, and Blood for the forgiveness of sins in the Divine Service; and to be bearers of this pure Truth to a broken world corrupted with sin, death, and every lie of the devil and man’s own sinful heart.

While the false and misleading ideas of human religious invention are appealing to sin-blinded minds, they fail when exposed to the realities of life. It is tragic when souls are led to confusion and despair because of the false religious ideas with which they are surrounded. The Biblical doctrine taught by the Apostles and restored at the Reformation holds answers which are relevant regardless of time or place and offers assurance of forgiven sins and eternal life who all who believe its message.

I am a husband, a father, the pastor of St. John’s Lutheran Church (LCMS) in Burt, IA, and track chaplain at Algona Raceway.